


All Hail The Goblin Queen

by Castle_Of_Glass



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Adult Sarah Williams (Labyrinth), Angst and Tragedy, Dark, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19448320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castle_Of_Glass/pseuds/Castle_Of_Glass
Summary: A long time ago, Sarah Williams made a foolish wish.And it has cost her more dearly than she ever could have imagined.





	1. Pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavenderspark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderspark/gifts).



> This is a work I’ve started for one of my sweet new tumblr followers. All Hail The Goblin Queen is inspired by a piece of art I drew under the same title.

Sarah Williams awoke every day in pain. It was for a different reason every time.

At the beginning, it had been a combination of several things.

There were the changes her body had already been going through that didn’t stop just because she was in another realm. She initially had been annoyed that among other things, she had growing legs and breasts to contend with.

At some point, the discomfort had finally stopped. At least, she knew it had stopped, because she had only recently remembered that those pains had ever existed. There was always too much else to think off.

There was the way that her spine ached and always refused to completely straighten out; this came from sleeping in any trees she could climb that she thought the goblins couldn’t. She was afraid to sleep on the ground for fear that she’d run afoul of something even worse than goblins.

There was the constant stitch in her side and the pain in her feet that remained because every day she was running, always running. Her loafers had long since worn out and she no longer had shoes.

Strips of cotton torn from her now tattered jeans, reeds, hides of small animals, and some of the scrappy clothing stolen from the creatures that had tormented Ludo served as something to cover the blisters and later the calluses.

But again, all of this had been at the beginning. The pain had still bothered her then. It had still brought tears to her eyes and made her long for her father’s arms and his familiar voice. Now . . .

Now, the pain was just another part of waking up, of living.

And now she tried very hard to not think of her father.

She did her best to never remember the last thing she had said to him, that she would never get to apologize for it.

And as for Karen . . . Sarah realized that she actually missed her stepmother.

Never in a million years could she have thought that she’d miss Karen, but she did. Too late, Sarah knew that Karen had been trying to be a good mother to her, really trying as best as she knew how.

She had never thought of that before now, she had never thought she should be been patient with Karen.

After all, Karen had never been a stepmother before, or . . .

A mother.

And that was another kind of pain.

It was one more excruciating than any minor, physical discomfort Sarah could ever go through.

Because she could never think of Karen without thinking of Toby.

And she still couldn’t ever think of Toby without breaking down.

Sarah knew she had been in the Underground—or in the Labyrinth—a long time. She didn’t know how long. But she had told herself all kinds of lies after that day, when the thirteenth hour had passed.

She had told herself she would wake up and see that it hadn’t been real, that it had just been a dream, that she would wake up in her own bed and Toby would be in his crib, that he would be fine.

Hundreds, thousands of times, Sarah had silently argued with herself, internally insisted that this had to happen.

Things would go back to the way they were. They just had to. But they didn’t. Things had actually stayed very much the same.

The Labyrinth was just as endless, just as infuriating, just as dangerous as it had been when she’d first entered it. She felt very much that she was part of it now.

And the hardest part was that she could never do what Ja—what _he_ had told her to do.

_Forget about the baby._

Forget?

She would never forget Toby.

Even if she had wanted to, she could never, ever forget. And it was on those days that Sarah hated herself the most.

On those days, she could not run, she could not hunt, she could only hide. She could only find a place where no one could see her or hear her.

Not so that she could cry. She had not been able to cry for a long time. The tears wouldn’t come anymore, but all the pressure in her head, the ache in her lungs, the heaviness of her heart were all there. All the pain that came with crying, but none of the release.

It was excruciating.

And she knew that she had never felt real guilt before now.

What had Toby ever done to her? Nothing. He had done nothing. He was just a baby.

Forget wishing him away, she had been just as thoughtless before she’d said the words and done the deed.

It hurt too much to think of his tears, of how she’d laid him in his crib that last night at home, how she stomped away and, as a final stab, had turned off the light.

Sarah knew now that it was just pure meanness that made her do that last thing.

She’d known very well that Toby had no problem with being left alone, but he hated being alone and in darkness.

And that’s just what she had left him in.

She had left him crying, alone and in the dark, before saying those words she could never take back . . .

All that had followed didn’t matter.

All she had wanted was to get Toby back, and she had failed.

On the nights when she let herself sleep, she would wake up with the chime of the thirteenth hour ringing in her ears, mingled with Toby’s cries.

It was a crushing, debilitating reminder.

Denial had taken root at first. It had taken a long time to realize that she had really, truly failed. She had failed to save Toby.

She had still not learned what happened to him and with every passing day, she gradually, numbly convinced herself that she was better off not knowing.

Knowing might finally push her over the edge that she got closer and closer to with every hour that she remained in the Labyrinth.

Sarah knew it would be the catalyst that finally made her lose her mind, when nothing else would.

It was no one’s fault but hers that Toby was gone now.

She knew it, and she hated herself endlessly for it.

But it was not only herself that Sarah hated . . .


	2. Him.

Sarah had never liked being afraid.

Before that night . . . before everything had changed, she had never been one for allowing herself to be put in a position to be afraid, either.

She never indulged in scary movies, rollercoasters or anything else that would allow that awful sensation to writhe its way into her stomach and cause panic to pulse in her veins.

Fear was what had prompted her father to check under her bed every night when she was five years old, and to also close her closet door when he was finished.

But the older she had gotten, such precautions were unnecessary. She had taught herself to believe that monsters were nothing but faceless, unknown entities in all of her favorite books. And they could always be defeated.

Sarah knew now that she had been dead wrong about that, too.

Monsters were real. They did have faces . . . and they had names.

And she didn’t have the faintest idea how she was supposed to defeat them. 

Sarah had seen the worst that the environment of the Underground had to offer—to say nothing of the fairies the would cloud around her like mosquitoes; the fireys that would set the grass aflame under her feet; the things that came out during the day and the worse things that came out at night—but there was only one thing she was truly afraid of. Only one.

And if she allowed herself to, she would admit that the thing wasn’t really a thing. 

It was a “he.” And he had a name.

Sarah did her best never to curse his name, because that would mean saying it.

And saying it would mean summoning him.

The idea that he could possibly hear her thoughts filled her with more paranoia than she could stand; hence she did her best to never think his name, either.

It was better, easier, to not think of him having a name at all.

But it didn’t do anything to change the fact that he still had one.

Which only made him all the more dangerous. Because it made him into something that she couldn’t let him become. Admitting to herself that he had a name made him—her _jailer_ —more than just another wild, unfeeling creature. It made him human.

It made him like _her_. 

But she knew he was anything but. Of all the beings she had thus far encountered in the Labyrinth, below it or outside of it—no matter what weapon they carried, or how sharp their teeth or their claws . . . they were nothing compared to _him_. 

_He_ was the most dangerous one. 

And since the thirteenth hour, Sarah’s hatred of him had never stopped. 

Because unlike so many other things, he never came at her with the intent of devouring her, of ending her life. Or . . . maybe he did. It was never easy to tell.

Whenever he did come at her, it was always with a courtesy and a nonchalance that all but made her want to tear her hair out. He had the _nerve_ to lark about and smile at her to her face, as if the two of them were the best of friends and it was perchance they met by accident . . .

He always managed to show himself when she was at her worst.

He could be found on the days when she checked every trap and learned that she had caught nothing, or when she was so exhausted that she didn’t feel the fairies biting at her extremities until they brought blood. He came when she wasn’t looking for him.

The worst part was that it was always him that was there when she needed someone to talk to. 

And Sarah knew it was her own fault that it was this way. 

See, there were periods when the Labyrinth remained the same for weeks at a time. 

It was then that she could easily get her bearings, or even risk to climb up to stand on top of the walls. She would be what seemed like less than a mile away from the castle, and sometimes would be in the junk piles that were just yards from the city gate . . .

And then everything would start all over again.

Oftentimes, she would be dropped in another part she knew well enough to stay away from. Or worse, she would find herself in a part she had never even seen before. 

Sometimes she would be outside of the walls with no memory at all of where she had just been. Sarah didn’t know quite how many times this had happened, but she suspected it must be quite a large number.

Then there were days when Labyrinth would change before her eyes; it would be every bit as confusing and tangled as the day when she first entered it. 

Sometimes it was full of the sound of animals, both familiar and unfamiliar.

But more often than not, the Labyrinth was silent. 

Deathly, awfully, silent. 

When it was like that, there was no sound of wind through trees, or of water from the brook that ran furthest from the bog. There was no buzzing of insects, and no call of birds (Sarah knew that there were no birds in the Underground). 

There was nothing but her feet padding across the ground.

Sarah had never realized before just how deafening silence could be. Or unnerving. 

It was a silence so intense that, sometimes, she imagined noises to fill it with. 

One of those imaginings was that she believed she could still hear Toby crying, somewhere just around the next corner. Sarah could run towards the sound until her legs gave out, but it would not change the fact that Toby simply was not there.

The nightmares born in that silence made it all the more easy for her to believe that she was truly losing her mind. It allowed the guilt to get an even worse hold on her. 

It made the idea of giving up far too appealing.

It was easy to be weak then.

And it was in one of those weak moments that Sarah had made another stupid, careless mistake. She had spoken it out loud just to hear a voice, even if it were her own. 

Granted, her own was rough from how little she had used it, softer and less clear than it had once been. It came from lips that were always parched from too little water.

But the words that had come from them were still powerful enough. 

_I wish that I had someone to talk to._

The words had hardly left her mouth when he appeared, as self-assured and beguiling as ever. 

She hadn’t said it properly and they both knew it; he just needed an excuse to show himself where she didn’t need or want him.

She had regretted it instantly, but she had already long since learned that there was no prayer of revoking a wish in his realm once it had been made. It was as he had told her so long ago: _What’s said is said._

From that day on, he had used her mistake as an excuse to make an even bigger nuisance of himself under the guise of being merciful, or even generous; that was his favorite word.

Oh, yes. The fact that she was hopelessly lost in his Labyrinth, starving and slowly losing her grip on reality, was a sure sign of his generosity . . .

Maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t dead yet, or the fact that nothing had taken a big bite out of her, that he saw as evidence of his so-called mercy. He behaved as pretentiously as if her whole life were in his hands and his alone.

It was a concept that she would never admit terrified her, but that she had to begrudgingly admit was most likely true. Sarah knew that the whole of the Labyrinth, all of the poky little goblin city and the Underground itself, was in his hands. She knew enough about him and his magic to know he was doing something to keep everything going and alive . . .alive, and growing. 

As many times as Sarah had traipsed through it, she did not know it as he did.

It truly was his domain. And he was so at home in it that he had made it more than his own.

He had made it nothing short of a part of himself. Everywhere she looked, everywhere she went, she only saw and sensed another extension of her adversary. His fingerprint was painfully, obviously evident.

The whole place _stank_ of him.

And every day, Sarah lived with more than just hate in her heart for him. 

She lived with a vague and uncertain fear—a fear that was fast becoming a crippling dread—that she too, against her will, would become part of the Labyrinth.

And the Labyrinth was his, all his. 


	3. Hunger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a little longer to get up, sorry!

Robert Williams had no idea that he had saved his daughter’s life.

He had never been the type of man who was content in the outdoors.  
If it were ever up to him to build himself any kind of temporary shelter, build a fire, or hunt and forage for his food, he’d be at a loss. He had always joked, albeit with some embarrassment, that he’d take the concrete jungle over a real one any day.

But then again, he’d never set foot in a real jungle; he’d scarcely even passed through a forest.

Robert was not his brother, or his father—both had never been more at home than when they were out of the house. And they had never stopped trying to get Robert to embrace that lifestyle. It had led to many hunting trips, countless camping trips, and lots of laughter over Robert’s amateurish antics between the three of them.

Gradually, his father and brother had accepted that Robert simply was not the type who found “roughing it” even a little fun. But it didn’t stop them from trying to educate him.  
A Christmas gift he’d received from one of them before Sarah was even born—when he and Linda were first married—proved that.  
Robert had picked up the book maybe three times that he could remember, but the title had immediately grabbed Linda’s attention.  
It read, A Guide To The Outdoors: How To Live Off The Land.

And when Sarah was old enough to appreciate pictures in books, she had taken an interest in it, as well. So much so that Robert had just given his daughter the guide the moment she was old enough to understand it. At the time, though, he had only seen it as simple indulgence; he was humoring her fancies, though he did enjoy her enthusiasm.

Truthfully, Robert didn’t see much point in Sarah knowing how to build shelters, make snares, identify certain tracks or herbs or mushrooms. He certainly didn’t see a point in her knowing how to skin or gut an animal once she’d killed it, which the book gave quite detailed descriptions on how to do.

He could never have imagined how important it was that she know any of these things.

Sarah did not only have the Labyrinth itself, the monsters therein, and him to deal with.

Hunger had been another ever-present enemy from the beginning.

Food simply was not an abundant commodity in the Labyrinth.  
Any vegetation in and around it was mainly limited to the grass and moss that grew out of the stone walls. There were, of course, plenty of the lichen that blinked.  
Unfortunately though, no matter how hungry Sarah had gotten, she never could bring herself to eat something with that many eyes.  
Eyes that still stared at her even after the plant itself was separated from its roots.

It wasn’t as if Sarah hadn’t left the Labyrinth in search of food before.

The forests scattered through the Underground were her best bet, but if there was anything of real sustenance that grew there, then the fire gang did a bang-up job of keeping her away from it. She’d almost had her head yanked off more times than she cared to count by those furry little psychos; she had no desire to lose it completely just because of hunger pangs. And in truth, she was almost afraid to let the Labyrinth out of her sight, even for a second. As much as she hated every brick and stone of it, it was still a means to an end—and she couldn’t reach the castle unless she passed through it.

All the same, the longer that she went with nothing in her stomach, Sarah knew she would be easy prey for anything unfriendly and hungry that came out at night.  
It was way back in her first few weeks in his kingdom that Sarah gradually, numbly realized she would have to kill if she wanted to eat. The problem with this wasn’t that she wasn’t willing to do it—it was just that there wasn’t much of anything to hunt.

In the Labyrinth or outside of it, there was rarely signs of any squirrels, rabbits, or mice.  
Even at night, she was lucky if she even heard one.  
She eventually decided that there simply must not be more than the few she had caught and whose pelts she had used to patch the tears in her clothes.  
But all the same, Sarah used to wonder why rodents were so scarce, until she remembered that _he_ could turn into an owl at will . . .

It still crossed her mind from time to time and she could never suppress a shudder.

It would have been foolish to hope to see anything like a deer (the one thing she really knew how to properly skin and gut), and Sarah had never dared to wish for one.  
Because of course, wishing for anything meant invoking him.  
And even if it meant starving, she would never have him say that he had done anything to help her, so that she in turn would owe him. Even if it killed her, Sarah wasn’t going to let it be said that she owed the Goblin King anything.

She couldn’t imagine what the goblins in the city lived off of, nor did she want to.  
Nothing could persuade her to kill and eat any of them, no matter how much she detested them. A good number of them couldn’t speak—she wouldn’t eat anything that could speak—but were still definitely sentient. And she was sure it wasn’t worth the trouble to bother with those scaly, knobby little twits. They would most certainly taste even more vile than they looked, anyhow.

Every once in a while, one of the hens that lived in the city would wander out and even roost in the shrubbery around where she had first encountered the “Wise Man” and his talking hat. Actually catching one of those feathery little beasts had gotten easier with time, and Sarah had managed to collect a few of their eggs. But of course, there was nothing she could count on. And food was only one of those things.

Shelter, as if turned out, was something that she could never depend on.  
Because the walls of the Labyrinth could and would change at random intervals, many a time she had spent anywhere from several minutes to a few hours building a lean-to that would disappear.

Out of necessity, Sarah never slept in the same place twice. There was no matter of finding a spot where she could linger, where she could sit and eat, or just a spot to simply “live.”  
Because in there, just living simply was not possible. There was simply nothing else to do but survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapters will be less of an outside narrative and will cover more specific events!


	4. Ennui.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! That took me forever!

Jareth was bored again.  
It didn’t come as a surprise; he was always bored. At least, he _had_ always been.  
Until her arrival. Hers, and her baby brother’s.  
Though he could make an hour feel like mere seconds, Jareth knew that it had been such a long time ago since he had entertained that little tyke in his castle.

_What was his name again . . ._

Jareth smiled. Oh yes, that’s right. It was Toby. Little Toby in his red and white stripes.  
He missed Toby sometimes.

 _Hmm. Such a pity_.

Upon his throne, Jareth stifled a yawn, dismissively tapping his upraised leg with the cane he held.  
Sarah was on his mind so often now. He hadn’t thought about the baby in years.  
Save for the few that Toby had been screaming his little lungs raw, all in all it had been a rather all right thirteen hours. Once Toby had finally calmed down, he didn’t object to being held, and Jareth had made sure to keep him off the floors so the goblins wouldn’t step on him.

Frankly, it had been so long since Jareth had whisked away a child——especially one so young—— that he was amazed he’d remembered how to even care for one.  
Of course, it was child’s play for Jareth to conjure milk out of the air for the baby to drink, or a piece of bread for him to nibble on.

Or maybe ”nibble” wasn’t the right word; as Jareth seemed to recall, Toby had only had a few teeth at the time. That probably accounted for all the screaming. This was nothing new; over the years there’d been many a baby that had been wished away whilst they were cutting their first teeth.  
And in truth, Jareth had found that he couldn’t really blame anyone for wishing a baby away during all _that_ . . .

But, all the same. What was there to do about it?  
That was one of Jareth’s favorite conundrums. When he was confronted with something he told himself he could not help but allow, the aftermath would, of course, have nothing to do with him.  
He would never admit to himself that he could have done very much about it.

Reaching up, Jareth rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. He then used that hand to conjure a small, spherical crystal between his fingers.  
Before, for the longest time, there was nothing at all to do.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to be . . . nowhere at all.

Nothing to do but listen to the goblins, incessant in their noise and their chatter and their messiness and their overall, utter imbecility. He would send a few to the Bog every now and again, or turn a few of them into something even less savory than what they already were, just to keep them in line.  
It always worked. For a few days at best.  
It took Jareth’s own special brand of gravitas — and a hefty dose of half-hearted tolerance — to deal with goblins. They had the approximate memory span of a goldfish; it was probably one of their best and worst features. Which meant they had no clue just how long _she_ had been in the Labyrinth.

There were days when Jareth knew that she didn’t even know herself.  
But he knew exactly how long it had been. He knew very well . . .  
And sometimes he wished that he could really, truly hate himself for it.

Exhaling, Jareth brought the crystal to his lips and whispered, _“Show her to me.”_

And just like that, Sarah’s face appeared in the glass.

As he always did when he saw her, he smiled.

He set the crystal on his fingertip and spun it around, watching the iridescent shapes inside swirling into focus until could see where Sarah was — she stood in the boughs of a tree, high off the ground. Her unkept hair, grown unbelievably long, whipped about her face like a dark flag. He watched as she blew some wayward strands from her face, pulled some aside with her thin hands, and cast her gaze all around. Her eyes seemed to stand out very large in her face, which wore an expression Jareth could only describe as vigilant.

She was waiting for something. Watching.

Jareth realized she was in the forest where the fireys dwelt, and he sat up. She hadn’t gone _there_ in quite some time. He brought a gloved thumb and forefinger to his mouth and stopped short of biting both. She’d nearly had her head jerked off by those psychotic little blighters last time, and the time before had just managed to lose a shoe before nearly catching on fire.

From her perch, Sarah appeared to be listening for something, or to something. Suddenly, she crouched in the branches, steeling herself for Jareth knew not what . . .

And then she did the last thing he would have expected her to do.

_She jumped._

The crystal was thrown out of focus as Jareth’s lungs clenched, and he was a breath away from jaunting to her when Sarah’s right hand suddenly leapt into view as she caught another branch, this time in another, closer tree. Caught as she was, she panted, looking all around her, any direction but down.  
Clearly, she suspected she was being watched.  
He dropped his cane and only dimly heard it clatter to the floor. Jareth’s clenched fingers put such stress on the spherical piece of glass that he could almost feel it crack.

What in the world did she think was she doing . . .

With a grunt, Sarah pulled herself up and wrapped both arms around a thicker section of the branch. Slowly, little by little, she began to edge her way over and around branches, getting ever closer to the trunk. Jareth remained frozen from where he had half-risen, unsure of whether or not he should interfere.

This time.

Tense and waiting, he bit at the edge of his thumbnail through his glove. Only when Sarah had finally set her feet on the branch and had her arms around the trunk did Jareth let himself breathe again.  
When she had gotten closer to the ground, he watched as she, while still clinging to the lower branches, pulled a small, rusty goblin dagger from her belt. She used it to break a few of the weaker, more leafy sections off.

Seconds later, she brandished a green but wieldy enough branch that might pass for a small staff.  
Then the image of Sarah in the crystal, quite clearly, made perfect and emotionless eye contact with Jareth. Right before the illusion in his hand shattered, she was raising the branch in an unmistakable gesture, as if she were swinging a cricket bat. Sarah’s expression had also changed from only mildly annoyed to immensely satisfied.

He couldn’t help but wonder if she had imagined that the crystal on her end was his head.

Honestly, even though Jareth was indignant, at the same time he couldn’t say he didn’t blame her. But that wasn’t what he was truly indignant about, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d ever caught him in the act. Exhaling, he fell more than sat down on his throne again and rubbed his temple in pure bewilderment.

How in the world Sarah had survived that first jump was beyond him.

Those branches must have been more than fifty feet off the ground; the jump alone should have been suicidal to even to the most agile cat in the goblin city. Whether or not the Labyrinth was as fickle as the wind and sometimes even the laws of gravity could be broken altogether, taking such a risk anywhere else in the Underground was no laughing matter at all, and he had a very good mind to go down there _right now_ and . . . and . . .

And do what?  
What was he getting so riled about, anyhow?

As if Sarah would listen to him even if he did go to her. She already never listened as it was.  
If he had spoken a suggestion to her on the wind once, he had done it a thousand times. Very rarely did Sarah ever follow that advice, whatever it was.

_Don’t go that way, dearest._   
_That’s another dead end, Sarah.  
Watch your step, precious._

Jareth picked his cane up again and tapped it against his thigh in utter frustration. The more helpful he attempted to be, the more she willfully deviated. She was so deucedly contrary that it was positively maddening. She was doing so much wrong, all wrong, and she was doing it almost gladly.

Besides the obvious, just what was she so sore about? So much of this sorry affair was her fault, after all . . .

Maybe so.

But it was not all her fault.

Jareth knew that very well.

And if he had let it, a small, barely-used part of him where his conscience lived might have actually acknowledged it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very different from how the story has been told so far. Please do leave some feedback and let me know what you think!


	5. Burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUGH, that took me forever, I’m sorry!

Sarah grunted under her breath, climbing hand over hand as quickly as she dared.   
She slipped the callused fingers of one hand into another crack in the stone wall, and used the other hand to cling to a thick mess of blinking lichen. Several little eyes turned to her curiously and she heard the slightest whispers of protest from their stalks. 

“Sorry,” she murmured shortly to the foliage. At last, she got a leg up over the wall and tentatively sought out its width with her fingertips. Yes, it was thick enough.   
Pulling her hair back from her lips, Sarah crouched on top of one of the Labyrinth’s only slightly lower walls. 

Her eyes traveled over the tangled landscape spread out before her—and it was quickly disappearing. 

It was almost time. 

Sarah watched as the last traces of the only star in the Underground slowly slipped from the walls all around and below her, and then the realm was plunged into night. 

Now, she waited. 

As steadily as she could, Sarah exhaled. She rubbed her arms to warn off the chill that was already creeping through the stones she sat upon. 

Night in the Underground was nothing like night at home. Or The Land Above, the goblins called it.   
Here, there was no moon. Nothing to reflect the glittering dust that covered the ground, or the mildew and slime that clung to the walls of the Labyrinth. 

At night, the goblin city was spotted with fires from the slovenly little homes of the goblins and boggarts. The castle was dimly lit, usually only by the torches mounted on its facade. 

The Labyrinth was full of nothing but darkness. Thick, encompassing, smothering darkness. 

But Sarah was not afraid of the dark. Not since she’d seen worse things. 

Not since him. 

Some nights, she was sure his mismatched blue eyes were looking right at her, always hovering just out of her reach. It was because of those nights that she’d started keeping stones in her pocket, just to practice her aim. It wasn’t like she could let herself fall asleep, knowing he was watching her . . . 

But as of late, Sarah hadn’t seen those eyes. She hadn’t seen anything.   
No, it was what she’d been hearing lately that gave her pause. 

And what had prompted her to seek out the fire gang. This time, on purpose.

Sarah’s mouth curved in the ghost of a smile. What she had entered the forest for that morning was sure to come in handy now. She tested the weight of the slender, bony object in grasped in her right fist. 

After countless instances of trial and error (as well as scorching her clothes and hair more than a few times), Sarah had discovered something rather interesting about the fireys and their body parts.   
For some reason no one could understand, they loved detaching their extremities and playing with them; she had learned that first-hand. But they could also use those limbs to start fires with a mere snap of their fingers. Or in some cases, their toes. 

And this disturbing talent worked, even after the limbs had been separated from the body for an undetermined amount of time. 

Something alerted Sarah’s ears and she straightened, peering out into the blackness and tightening her grip on the firey’s arm. She saw nothing, of course. But she was starting to hear a great deal. 

As a final precaution, she gave the moss around her feet a final, experimental tap. Dry as a bone.   
Sarah inhaled, raising the firey’s arm above her head. 

There was no doubt in her mind that this was going to work. If it didn’t . . . well, there was no “if.” She refused to entertain the possibility of “if.”   
She couldn’t afford to mess up, not this time.

With a exhalation that was closer to a tension-releasing scream, Sarah brought the firey’s limb down on the side of the wall where the moss was driest. Rising and backing up, she scrambled out of the way. Instantly, a curtain of flame leapt up the wall and lit up the darkness around her. 

Fire crawled along as rapidly as an angry dragon, sputtering and crackling with frenzied energy.   
It spread, showing her the walls of the Labyrinth, the vastness of the maze and all it’s tangling turns and twists . . . and it showed her something else. 

Something altogether new.

Something that just might be worse than all the Goblin Kings the Underground had to offer her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, cliffhanger, wooo *weakly shakes pom poms*. But seriously, my notes for the next chapter are a little longer and will explain why Sarah is setting fire to the rain, as it were :3

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? I’ve only recently come into the Labyrinth fandom (remarkably bad taste of me arriving this late to the party, I know), but I love it and I’d like to do even an AU justice.  
> Please tell me what y’all think!


End file.
